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| Event type

Slalom, Men

Date27 February 2010
StatusOlympic
LocationWhistler Creekside, Whistler (Lower Dave Murray)
Participants101 from 55 countries
FormatTwo runs, total time determined placement.
DetailsGates: 66
Length: 610 m
Start Altitude: 985 m
Vertical Drop: 180 m

The Austrian men’s team still had not medaled in Vancouver prior to the last race, after having won eight medals in Torino – two gold, three silver, and three bronze. But other major “skiing nations” had also not medaled in the men’s races, notably France, Italy, and Germany. The Austrians had won all the major titles since the last Olympics where Benjamin Raich won gold. Mario Matt, who failed to qualify for Vancouver, won the 2007 World Championships in Åre and Manfred Pranger was the 2009 World Champion in Val d’Isère. The 2009-10 season saw Reinfried Herbst, silver medalist from Torino, in the lead of the slalom World Cup after eight of nine races as he had won four times – in Levi, Alta Badia, Schladming, and Kranjska Gora. In second place was the winner at Adelboden, Julien Lizeroux, and in third was the winner in Wengen and runner-up in the 2008-09 slalom World Cup, Ivica Kostelić, while Giuliano Razzoli had won in Zagreb. Lizeroux also finished third in the 2008-09 World Cup and won silver at the 2009 World Championships. But Herbst was not favored in Vancouver due to the topography and the course, with the experts looking to Razzoli, whose Zagreb win was on a similar course. Missing from Vancouver were top slalom specialists Rainer Schönfelder, the bronze medalist from Torino, and Jean-Baptiste Grange, both of whom were out with ACL tears.

Poor weather had caused all sorts of problems with other alpine skiing events, and foggy weather was prevalent throughout this, the last race in Whistler, although it was completed. After the first run Razzoli led in a time of 47.79 seconds with Mitja Valenčić (SLO) 0.43 seconds behind and Raich a further 0.11 seconds back. The early leader in the second run was the Canadian, Julien Cousineau, who at last gave the home crowd something to cheer about in the alpine events. His second run time of 51.07 was to be the second fastest time of the second run and his combined time of 1:40.66 would be good enough for 8th place. Cousineau held his lead until Andre Myhrer surpassed it with a second run of 50.73 (the quickest) and a combined time of 1:39.76. Kostelić, 4th after the first run, then had a good run to take the overall lead with a time of 1:39.48. Raich had a few minor errors, but it was enough to cost him time, finishing in 1:39.81 that was to be just outside the medals. Valenčić had a poor second run, eventually finishing down in 6th place. The last skier to go, Razzoli, held his nerve and, despite having a 0.58 second advantage over Kostelić after the first run, finished just 0.16 seconds ahead in a time of 1:39.32, so winning Italy’s only medal of the alpine skiing events.

Razzoli won the second gold medal at this Games for skiing manufactor Nordica, the same as used by bronze medalist Myhrer, while Kostelić trusted Fischer for silver. Raich and Marcel Hirscher, both just outside the medals, skied on Atomic and sixth placed Valenčić had the best finish in Vancouver for Elan. Finishing in 47th place was Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, known as The Snow Leopard, the first competitor from Ghana to compete in the Winter Games.

PosNumberCompetitorNOCTimeRun #1Run #2
113Giuliano RazzoliITA1:39.3247.79 (1)51.53 (7)Gold
22Ivica KostelićCRO1:39.4848.37 (4)51.11 (3)Silver
312André MyhrerSWE1:39.7649.03 (10)50.73 (1)Bronze
43Benjamin RaichAUT1:39.8148.33 (3)51.48 (6)
56Marcel HirscherAUT1:40.2048.92 (9)51.28 (4)
69Mitja ValenčičSLO1:40.3548.22 (2)52.13 (19)
78Manfred MölggITA1:40.4548.64 (5)51.81 (9)
819Julien CousineauCAN1:40.6649.59 (19)51.07 (2)
94Julien LizerouxFRA1:40.7248.82 (8)51.90 (10)
107Reinfried HerbstAUT1:40.7849.23 (12)51.55 (8)
1137Ondřej BankCZE1:40.8148.69 (6)52.12 (18)
121Silvan ZurbriggenSUI1:40.8348.78 (7)52.05 (17)
1314Mike JanykCAN1:41.0949.18 (11)51.91 (11)
1410Mattias HarginSWE1:41.2549.27 (13)51.98 (=12)
1523Marc GiniSUI1:41.3549.94 (22)51.41 (5)
1641Maxime TissotFRA1:41.5449.52 (16)52.02 (14)
1731Kjetil JansrudNOR1:41.5749.54 (18)52.03 (=15)
1827Akira SasakiJPN1:41.7649.41 (14)52.35 (22)
1943Natko Zrnčić-DimCRO1:41.9950.01 (23)51.98 (=12)
2033Kilian AlbrechtBUL1:42.3650.08 (24)52.28 (20)
2138Thomas Mermillod-BlondinFRA1:42.4849.90 (21)52.58 (24)
2250Jens ByggmarkSWE1:42.5350.50 (=27)52.03 (=15)
2330Aleksandr KhoroshilovRUS1:42.8250.50 (=27)52.32 (21)
2446Nolan KasperUSA1:43.1750.66 (29)52.51 (23)
2556Stefan GeorgievBUL1:43.9250.86 (30)53.06 (25)
2665Cristian Simari BirknerARG1:44.7251.35 (31)53.37 (26)
2753Dave RydingGBR1:45.1351.58 (33)53.55 (27)
2858Christophe RouxMDA1:45.7551.90 (35)53.85 (28)
2971Andy NobleGBR1:46.1351.55 (32)54.58 (30)
3066Jaroslav BabušiakSVK1:46.8652.10 (37)54.76 (31)
3135Trevor WhiteCAN1:47.1749.53 (17)57.64 (37)
3261Danko MarinelliCRO1:47.3352.28 (38)55.05 (32)
3362Vasilios DimitriadisGRE1:48.1651.96 (36)56.20 (35)
3463Jeroen Van Den BogaertBEL1:48.5653.99 (42)54.57 (29)
3574Mikail RenzhinISR1:48.9152.84 (39)56.07 (34)
3675Marko RudićBIH1:49.1653.70 (40)55.46 (33)
3776Kristaps ZvejnieksLAT1:51.2953.82 (41)57.47 (36)
3888Igor ZakurdayevKAZ1:52.8154.41 (43)58.40 (38)
3983Rostyslav FeshchukUKR1:53.7955.35 (45)58.44 (39)
4079Bojan KosićMNE1:55.3256.15 (46)59.17 (41)
4169Hossein Saveh ShemshakiIRI1:56.3957.59 (47)58.80 (40)
4290Oleg ShamayevUZB1:58.0557.65 (48)1:00.40 (42)
43101Li LeiCHN2:00.8659.43 (49)1:01.43 (43)
4498Samir AzzimaniMAR2:02.431:00.43 (50)1:02.00 (44)
4589Shane O'ConnorIRL2:05.141:00.83 (51)1:04.31 (45)
4699Hubertus von HohenloheMEX2:07.781:02.09 (52)1:05.69 (46)
47102Kwame Nkrumah-AcheampongGHA2:22.601:09.08 (53)1:13.52 (48)
4895Erjon TolaALB2:43.881:33.94 (54)1:09.94 (47)
DNF24Patrick ThalerITA50.13 (25)– (DNF)
DNF11Steve MissillierFRA49.49 (15)– (DNF)
DNF22Jimmy CochranUSA54.94 (44)– (DNF)
DNF20Axel BäckSWE50.25 (26)[59.23] (DQ)
DNF47Sandro VilettaSUI49.85 (20)– (DQ)
DNF64Iason AbramashviliGEO51.89 (34)[53.83] (DQ)
DNF18Lars MyhreNOR– (DNF)
DNF81Deyvid OprjaEST– (DNF)
DNF84Erdinç TürkseverTUR– (DNF)
DNF5Manfred PrangerAUT– (DNF)
DNF32Marc BerthodSUI– (DNF)
DNF15Felix NeureutherGER– (DNF)
DNF40Truls Ove KarlsenNOR– (DNF)
DNF21Urs ImbodenMDA– (DNF)
DNF52Andreas RomarFIN– (DNF)
DNF26Cristian DevilleITA– (DNF)
DNF29Filip TrejbalCZE– (DNF)
DNF44Dalibor ŠamšalCRO– (DNF)
DNF36Matic SkubeSLO– (DNF)
DNF28Brad SpenceCAN– (DNF)
DNF49Björgvin BjörgvinssonISL– (DNF)
DNF25Bernard VajdičSLO– (DNF)
DNF16Ted LigetyUSA– (DNF)
DNF73Antonio RistevskiMKD– (DNF)
DNF48Martin VráblíkCZE– (DNF)
DNF70Ioan Gabriel NanROU– (DNF)
DNF78Jhonatan LonghiBRA– (DNF)
DNF86Jaba GelashviliGEO– (DNF)
DNF92Andrey DryginTJK– (DNF)
DNF67Pouria Saveh ShemshakiIRI– (DNF)
DNF96Leyti SeckSEN– (DNF)
DNF17Bode MillerUSA– (DNF)
DNF39Kentaro MinagawaJPN– (DNF)
DNF42Leif Kristian HaugenNOR– (DNF)
DNF45Mitja DragšičSLO– (DNF)
DNF51Jeong Dong-HyeonKOR– (DNF)
DNF54Sergey MaytakovRUS– (DNF)
DNF55Kim U-SeongKOR– (DNF)
DNF57Bart MollinBEL– (DNF)
DNF59Stefán Jón SigurgeirssonISL– (DNF)
DNF60Stepan ZuyevRUS– (DNF)
DNF68Roger VidosaAND– (DNF)
DNF72Stefanos TsimikalisGRE– (DNF)
DNF77Agustín TorresARG– (DNF)
DNF80Márton BeneHUN– (DNF)
DNF85Vitalijus RumiancevasLTU– (DNF)
DNF91Christopher PapamichalopoulosCYP– (DNF)
DNF94Jedrij NotzAZE– (DNF)
DNF100Dmitry TrelevskyKGZ– (DNF)
DQ34Kryštof KrýzlCZE[49.51] (DQ)
DQ82Ghassan AchiLBN– (DQ)
DQ87Arsen NersisyanARM[1:03.68] (DQ)
DQ97Manfred OettlPER[1:05.27] (DQ)
DNS93Markus KilsgaardDEN– (DNS)